


Retrouvailles

by gigiree



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop & Tattoo Parlor, F/M, LadyNoir - Freeform, Marichat, adrienette - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-03 07:46:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5282588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigiree/pseuds/gigiree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's an art to telling stories. There's an art to ending them. Just know that saying "the end" is just another way of saying it's a new beginning. When she says goodbye, her luck is gone. His has just begun. </p>
<p>Tattoo and Flowershop AU!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spin me a tail of flowers and ink

It’s not often that you’re given choices. Life leaves marks, on the heart and on the skin. It will carve out its piece and fill in spaces haphazardly with things both welcome and not.

Marinette knows choices. She knows the vacillating fear, the trepidation of making a decision, with consequences looming over her future. She’s really good at making decisions, at knowing just when to leap, when to throw. She used to have innumerable powers at her fingertips, luck to guide her when making a sure step in whatever direction she needed to.

Luck and decisions had given her the smallest of scars, little scratches and bruises hidden wonderfully underneath Ladybug’s suit.

She’s lost count of how many times she thanked the skies that it was red. It meant less worry on Chat’s part if he couldn’t see her bleed.

She’s known choices the best when she decides to say goodbye to Tikki and keep her secrets.

When all is said and done, and being Ladybug is no longer a necessity, Marinette finds out she has run out of time. Chat Noir says farewell, with a bittersweet smile and a request for kiss. 

Chat Noir, for all his flirtations, is above all respectful. A kiss on the cheeks would have satisfied. He hadn’t been expecting her lips on his. He hadn’t been expecting the soft, brief brushing of fingers through his hair. He hadn’t been expecting the warmth of her melancholy sigh as they parted. 

And she hadn’t expected to miss him so much.

His parting leap had been so high, she thought for a mad second that he might just disappear into the inky darkness of the night, right into the smattering of stars peeking through the clouds.

She didn’t cry though.

* * *

 

Decisions have consequences, and in making hers, she’s lost a friend.

But there’s an art to losing people, and Marinette becomes good at it after a while when the heroes’ disappearances are noticed and speculation reigns supreme.

It is around this time that Adrien Agreste is outed as Chat Noir and Marinette decides that she made the right choice. 

Alya, her beloved friend, is thankfully too preoccupied with the fact that she was right about Chat Noir’s identity to focus much on Ladybug’s trail. Marinette is thankful she doesn’t have to lose her too.

It’s only when Alya turns on the television during a press conference, and Adrien looks so small in front of dozens of press microphones and questions, that Marinette feels her throat hurt.

It’s only when Adrien smiles softly and says the one thing he’s always wanted to say that she cries.

“Je t’aime, my Lady.”

There’s an art to losing people and there’s an art to faking why you cry. Luckily for her, Alya easily swallows the explanation that Marinette cries because her feelings aren’t reciprocated.

But they are...just not in the way she wanted them to be.

There’s an art to forgetting. This is one thing Marinette is really good at.

* * *

 

Marinette’s always been an artist. The freedom that resides in sweeping movements, and decisions both patterned and unpredictable is her boon.

There’s artistry in fashion.But it is a transient beauty, clothes being pushed to the back of sales’ racks when the season is out. They are made to please and to delight. And while each piece and design is her own, lovingly born on paper and ink, something terrible happens in the journey from paper to model.

She loses her creations, to censure, to critics, to public demand. 

Art is no longer art for its’ own sake. She knew the risks coming into the industry, but encouragements and small successes had lead to a blind hope, fleeting dreams of designing for the likes of Gabriel Agreste and watching her clothes make girls simply  _happy_  to dress up.

But dreams are meant to be dashed, and reality is fraught with the effects of decisions. She decides she hates the industry. She’s lost any right to the creations she’s made and it’s not worth fighting for something she had long ago stopped weaving her soul into. What they have are empty things...not something she needs to keep.

So it’s how she finds herself here. Marinette Dupain-Cheng is a former fashion designer and current tattoo artist.

It’s the same really. It is artistry transformed into sweeping lines, ink on skin, stories on flesh. It’s much more intimate, the way her clients bare their shoulders, their arms, their backs and their hearts though her creations.

Her shop is nestled on the sweetest little corner of a Parisian  _quartier_. The every day traffic hums through, never quite pausing in the daily rush. But  _they_  know where to find her. The people with stories to mark on their bodies. The dreamers down on their luck with images more meaningful than they may at first belie.

She adores her job.

She adores that the stars she shadows at the base of the slim librarian’s spine is meant to be for navigation, a reminder of nautical adventures she reads about in the books she tends.

She adores that the primrose she etches in soft pinks on the burly butcher’s arm represents his first love...his wife of fifteen years.

She adores it all.

* * *

 

She’s changed her mind. There’s something to dislike about her job after all.

She doesn’t mind it at first. On the contrary, she’s excited at the prospect. She smiles expectantly at the large, white moving truck stationed outside her shop. The engine is still running, and she has to bite back her laughter when she sees the driver tumble out haphazardly, his white head phones askew around his neck and his dark-rimmed glasses slipping to the tip of his nose.

She thinks he looks vaguely familiar, but Paris is a large city and it’s not the first time she’s seen a bit of someone she once knew in a stranger’s smile or posture.

The next day, a flower shop has appeared. Popped up from among the dilapidated and admittedly ugly concrete of her building like dandelions in summer. 

She reaches into the pocket of her gray cardigan to pull out her phone, eager to capture what she sees.

It’s decidedly normal looking, the display windows wreathed in condensation as their occupants positively  _breathe._ She swears she can almost see the sunflowers spread their leaves and close them back, as if taking breaths. The reds, oranges and yellows of the numerous blooms sings in the clear sunlight, hazy beyond the shine and blurring to a scene done in water colors. 

It’s all so lovely. At least until she really looks among the verdant foliage of the display, and her horror knows no bounds. 

It’s Ladybug...Ladybug everywhere. And soon she forgets to breathe herself, a tight knotting blocking anymore air from rushing in.

There’s red ornaments with black dots. Wind chimes with ladybugs and her own silhouette outlined in delicate stained glass. Pots and fountains with the same theme. There’s even a special flower, a species of tiny dog rose specifically colored with small black dots. 

Her line of sight continues upward, slowly, painstakingly cautious as she pans to the delicate wide scrawl that graces the entrance of the building. It’s the name of the flower shop in bold red and black colors.

“Ladyluck Flowers”

And the logo...the logo is a ladybug, as expected. What she hadn’t expected was for the logo to have one of the dots on the ladybug’s shell be in the unmistakable shape of a lone black cat.

She stows away her phone, and turns back to walk the few steps between the flower shop abomination and her tattoo parlor. Her short heels  _click clack_ a staccato beat, as short and personal as her farewell kiss had been.

That little black cat is dredging up old hurts, and she doesn’t like it. She thought that story had been written out, laid to rest in black ink and in the tail and whiskers of her own green-eyed cat on the right side of her back.

_‘Not here. Not here. It’s done. Leave me alone.’_

She feels a headache starting, threading it’s way up from her neck to her temples. The pulsing tattoo of her beating heart is painful, and she half considers taking the rest of the day off and canceling her appointments.

But stories on skin require a special skill and patience to tell. If she can’t finish hers, then she would at least like to do it for someone else.

Luck is no longer hers to have, and it’s why she’s chosen to etch the black cat onto her own flesh. She’s unlucky...in love, in life. But it’s  _their story,_ and she should have known it wasn’t over. Not when it’s bloom is still fresh in memory, and it’s been seeking light and fruition for millenia.

* * *

 

Marinette has learned a lesson as LadyBug. 

To protect your home. Protect where you’ve set down roots, because if you let just anyone encroach on  _that,_ then what do you fight for?

She plays it guerrilla style. On the days when one of her co-workers can take over her appointments, she sneaks out. She dawns a pair of large sunglasses, wears an inconspicuous black hooded sweater. (Any symbolism is lost on her. She will deny it vehemently.)

She finds, much to her surprise, that it is crowded. The store is popular. She notes this with intense dissatisfaction. Her lips curl into an awful sneer, and the bitterness of her twenty-three years rears its ugly head. Despite the fact that it’s been four years since the heroes’ last appearance, nostalgia is a powerful thing.

She has to heave her way through the small crowd of mostly girls, and wonders why a flower shop is garnering so much attention. Especially one in this little, unimportant corner of the city.  _Her_  corner.

Admittedly, the inside has a little less Ladybug, and a lot more of what it’s supposed to. Had it not been filled to bursting, she would have found the atmosphere fairly charming.

The bright fluorescent lighting just barely ekes through all the foliage. She has to avoid bumping into the stands, freshly cut blooms arranged in delicately wrought vases. There’s the quiet song of water trickling steadily, and she can see tiny water features peeking out from behind the snapdragons and ferns to the right of the store.

There’s less gaudy ribbons, more tasteful silvery trappings than anything. The store has let the blooms speak for themselves, bright and attention calling.

Still it’s nothing that would draw such a lively crowd.

She gets her answer when she sees the owner, wrapping up bouquets and single stems as fast as he can, in the meanwhile trying to keep the conversation flowing between him and whatever person has called for his attention next.

She hasn’t seen him in years. Not since the reveal and not since he went across the ocean to study business or  _something_  like that.

And there’s an inkling of expectation, the tiniest flutter in her chest of something she doesn’t like to indulge. As a matter of fact, she refuses to acknowledge it. 

Even if Adrien Agreste has grown into his height, broad shoulders cutting quite the figure dressed in a simple, slightly wrinkled white button up shirt. His collar is slightly popped up. The entire picture is completed with the red apron stretched haphazardly across his front, trailing large black dots ruining the stateliness of an otherwise sharply dressed personage. 

“Can you please sign it, _from Chat Noir_?” requests a particularly enthusiastic girl, clasping her hands and squealing when he turns his pretty smile towards her.

It’s not his best one. It’s not his Chat Noir smile.

Marinette doesn’t know if she wants to laugh or cry. Stories have endings, but she should have known that endings are just another way to say new beginnings.

Adrien is momentarily interrupted from signing yet another card on a rose bouquet when the store bell rings and he sees a slight woman exit as fast as she can. She’s dressed all in black, save for one spot of color. The trailing red ribbons in her hair strike him with a strange melancholy.

It’s enough of a startling sensation to make him move.

"Wait, Miss! “ He calls out, but even as he excuses himself and rounds the glass counter to push past his customers, he knows he won’t make it.

By the time he’s at the front, the bell sounding indignant as he roughly pushes the door open, she’s nowhere to be seen. 

 


	2. Reciprocal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second encounters and lots of symbolism.

It’s dark by the time she trudges up to her flat, her boots thudding dully on the dusty, creaking stairs. She skips over the thirteenth step, because she’s had enough bad luck for today. Thank god for small blessings, because it seems to work.

Her key doesn’t jam and she doesn’t meet the lascivious young musician who lives right across from her. Her door opens neatly for once and doesn’t fall from its hinges. It’s all just barely enough to keep her together until she enters her home, throws her keys on the small dining table and kicks off her shoes.

After that, it’s a little too much for her to handle. She’s tired and sad. Her spirit is so heavy. Weighty enough that she decides to flop onto her bed, still dressed in her black sweater and jeans. 

“This isn’t fair.” Marinette mumbles into her pillow. 

She only mumbles, but it’s a far from sufficient means of coping because there are screams threatening to tear from her throat. The desperation is real and raw. It’s scrabbling up, clawing its way in painful spasms, but Marinette is stubborn. She clenches her teeth, and bites back the sobs, because crying has never done her any good.

She wants to fight. She wants to shout and pound her fists against the wall, but she knows that the walls of her apartment building are thin. Thin enough for her to hear the muffled shouts of the torrid lovers to her left and the droning of the evening news to her right. There’s the young girl trailing her fingers over piano keys, striking flat notes across the hall. 

Yes, the walls are thin and people are living. Living and blooming, with stories to tell. Turning pages to continue whatever they need to.

She’s learned her lessons. Turning the page would mean moving forward, but forward is hazy and intangible for her…as scattered as the stars dotting the curve of her spine, just behind  _her_  black cat.

She fights a losing battle. It’s a bit sad, because she had once been lucky enough to win the war. But she has to remember that she is no longer a Ladybug.

She looks at the dulled, chipped earrings sitting innocuously on her night stand. The faded red is blurred in her sight, her tears giving them the same watercolor quality the sun had given the flowers earlier.

Guidance is something she needs, and from someone…anyone who could understand. So the words leap from her throat on the tail of her quiet sobs. 

“Tikki, what do I do? Where do I go from here?”

Like always, there is no reply. 

She knows it’s pointless, and she knows that she’ll have to get up sometime soon and eat something, but for now she lets herself wallow and curl up underneath her warm gray woven blanket.

For now, let her sleep to the sounds of the news and lovers and the clumsily beautiful piano.

For now, let her forget. She’s really good at that, after all.

* * *

 

He can’t forget.

The trailing red ribbons, the softness of her farewell, the loneliness.

Adrien can’t forget any of it and it’s eating away at him, gnawing and nibbling until his heart is riddled with  _what-ifs_  and things unfulfilled. It’s a darkness colder than the one outside.

At least there are street lamps to alleviate the shadows there.

But flowers need tending, and Adrien does what he can and rearranges them for some kind of distraction. He thinks he’s gotten better at making it look like he’s forgotten. 

That’s untrue.

Plagg thinks it’s the saddest thing he’s ever seen. Even more so than G _ood Luck’s_ slumber and a Ladybug without her spots.

He doesn’t know if saying something would be a detriment, but he was made with a smidgen of chaos in his being. It’s enough to let him brush past his sympathies and say things…for curiosity’s sake, at least.

“She was here. I felt her…or what was left of her.” Plagg remarks. His tone is deceivingly even and maybe a little mocking.

The shattering of the glass vase isn’t nearly as jarring as the expression on Adrien’s face. 

His eyes are wide enough to show the whites. His skin is sallow and wan in the harsh fluorescent lighting. The telltale tremble of his fingers is made even more obvious by the death-grip he maintains on the variegated red carnations, his fingers digging into the snapped stems and dripping wet.

“W-what…you mean, that was…” 

He can’t forget, but he also can’t articulate because there’s so much longing and a torrent of so many things washing away his words. There’s a veritable ringing in his ears. A hope uncalled for is blossoming large in his heart, threading roots through every hole that had been bored into him.

The  _what-ifs_  become  _maybe’s_ and things unfulfilled become possibilities.

Until he remembers Plagg’s words.

“What was left of her?” He asks.

He’s scared. Oh, the fear threatens to choke him and his newly bloomed hope. Plagg’s dismal expression, the curling of his lips over his tiny fangs makes it even worse.

“The good luck is gone. It’s in slumber…Poor girl must be lonely.” 

But there’s the tiniest bit of wistful bitterness in Plagg’s movements. He remains curled into the folds of Adrien’s discarded peacoat on the glass counter, but his tail twitches and his eyes glow eerily.

“You’re angry?” Adrien breathes quietly, slowly loosening his grip on the mangled carnations. He leaves the  _why_ floating between them, but Plagg is old enough and hears it as clearly as spoken thoughts.

Plagg coughs slightly, pondering if he should be emotive, but Adrien looks pitiful in his red apron and with drooping blossoms clutched to his chest.

Just this once can’t hurt. Just this once, let him be honest and straightforward.

And Plagg looks very tiny and  _young_  when he digs his claws into the soft wool and gives a mournful hum.

“Because Tikki didn’t say  _goodbye_  this time.”

Questions linger and hope is present, but the pain of farewells (both done and not) is still as fresh as the flowers at the front of the shop. So the rest of the hour is spent cleaning and locking up in silence.

Plagg has his eyes closed, but Adrien has known him long enough to figure that the kitty cat is most likely feigning sleep to avoid anymore sentiment.

Adrien makes sure to purchase a particularly fragrant Camembert on the way home that night.

* * *

 

Morning brings with it bright sunbeams and a whole new set of sounds that dance sinuously beneath the thin layers of Marinette’s apartment walls. There’s the pattering of the little girl upstairs bounding across the floorboards to get ready for school. There’s the languid, sleepy murmurs of the lovers next door that make her feel the tiniest bit queasy. There’s also the morning news blaring a bit too loudly.

Morning also brings a fresh cup of tea and an unwelcome, but wholly well-meaning Alya perched comfortably at the foot of her bed.

Marinette wakes with the shifting of her bed and the lightest of touches brushing hair from her sleepy eyes.

When the blurry outlines of her room and her best friend resolve into clear cut reality sharp enough to sting, she groans. 

“I should have  _never_  given you the spare key.” She grouses, before laying back down against her pillow, throwing an arm across her face to block out the sun and Alya’s equally searing gaze. Sunlight dances in those pretty honey eyes of hers, and Marinette simply isn’t ready for that kind of light to be shed on her emotional turmoil just yet.

“Juleka says you left the shop early yesterday. She said you looked pale and sick. You weren’t answering my calls or my texts. You also missed our lunch date.” 

Apparently Alya’s light is much more illuminating than the sun’s, because it’s enough to make her get up. Marinette can hear the pricking reproach braided into her complaints. It’s not the anger that makes her rise from her bed. It’s the sheer worry laced into Alya’s voice that does.

“I’m...I’m sorry, Alya. I’m just...” Marinette trails off. There’s more conveyed in her lingering silence. There’s more meaning in the shuddering sigh that she heaves and in the rumpled black sweater that hangs off of her.

There’s much more than that in the blushing azaleas and timid periwinkle forget-me-not’s winding their way up her right arm from wrist to shoulder, broad verdant leaves limp with the slump of her back. They peek just over the sleeve slipping down to her elbow, telling and somber.

And Alya doesn’t need to speak. She merely places the chipped mug with the still-warm tea into her uncertain hands. She offers a comforting smile, but Marinette is glad for the writhing steam that fogs up Alya’s fashionable glasses.

It mitigates some of the pity she thinks swims below those sunny eyes. It might be there, streaming through worry and anger and curiosity.

_‘_ _Don’t look at me in that way. Don’t pity me, please.’_

Marinette welcomes any distraction. Anything to avoid pity. So she drops her eyes to the rim of her mug, and takes a tentative sip. She sucks in a sharp breath to cool the tea in her mouth, and focuses on the bittersweet ginger and honey concoction that is Alya’s specialty.

The tea is just as nuanced as its brewer, but it is a poor distraction. 

 _“_ I don’t feel sorry for you.” Alya says simply as she wipes her glasses on her nice collared blouse. She tucks her shirt tails neatly back into the hem of her dark slacks, before finally looking straight at an owlishly blinking Marinette.

The words reverberate in Marinette’s chest, verily welcome. They were unexpected in a best case scenario kind of way. She wonders if skipping that thirteenth step had made a difference after all. And even with the hot mug clutched closely to her chest, she knows the sudden warmth she feels is because Alya knows her too well and has said exactly what she wanted to hear. 

Marinette straightens a little at the thought, a grateful smile curving her lips. 

Alya is merely glad to see the flowers blooming again when this happens. She’s always been surprised by how much she can tell by the tattoos winding their way around the lines of her friend’s slight frame. She doesn’t know if it’s a good or bad thing, but she figures it’s pretty enough to merit a place in her esteem.

“What are you going to do?” 

It’s a challenge, direct and abrupt because Alya cannot stand the wilting Marinette that appears whenever  _he_ showed up in unexpected reminders.

The question is loaded with enough possibility to stretch a hole into any and all future plans Marinette may have conjured up before that weed of a flower shop had popped up from dilapidated concrete overnight. She’s cried enough tears over the man with dandelion hair to water all the blooms housed in his store. 

She needs to defend her turf. To be the pen with ink dark enough to blot out the sun and stifle the growth of weeds in  _her_  quartier.

She can’t be Ladybug any longer. But she once was, and the title and the name all belong to her...at least who she used to be. It hurts to see  _Her,_ that girl with Luck in her heart and strength at her fingertips.

Ladybug  _was_  artless; she  _was_  straightforward and direct.

Marinette is an artist; she is subtle and has a technique predicated on information. And there’s an art to small scale sabotage...to getting what you want. Marinette isn’t very good at it, but she’s going to try anyway.

LadyLuck Flowers will have a new theme by the end of the year if she has anything to say about it.

There’s a slight hardness to it all, but Alya knows Marinette. She know she’s an artist. She knows she can be extreme in her dealings with emotions. And she knows that whatever Marinette isn’t telling her is making her hurt in ways too deep to cover with ink.

But there’s an art to learning secrets, and Alya’s been  _really good_ at that for the longest time.

* * *

 

The first time he speaks to her, she’s wearing a gray cardigan and a simple black dress. 

There’s nothing outstanding about her appearance, save perhaps for the giant dark sunglasses she chooses to wear  _inside_ the store.

She stands out in the way black cats do against the brightness of Paris. She’s a spot of shadow among the vibrant colors of his store. His nose is filled with the fragrances both sweet and sharp of the plants he cares for, so he can’t quite pinpoint why she brings to mind the smell of freshly baked bread and sugar.

She is out of place and she looks like she’d rather be anywhere else but in his flower shop. He feels a little defensive about that, but she hasn’t even said a word. It’s all in the way she holds out her purchase with a grimace twisting her lovely lips and in the way her spine is as ramrod straight as a trellis.

But he tries...oh he tries to strike a conversation and find a flicker of friendliness, but he can’t see past the glossy shine on those stupid sunglasses.

“Hello, Miss. Is there anything I can help you with?”

“No. I’m okay. Thank you.”

Short. Impersonal. Angry? It’s all a little unnatural. 

He’s usually thankful for the slow mornings when only customers looking for flowers and not shadows of a heroic past trickle in. But today...today he wishes there were crowds and people to dilute the awkwardness he feels emanating from this strange person. What’s even stranger is her flower of choice.

The single yellow zinnia she gives him is delicately blooming, it’s many layers brushing softly against his work gloves as he prunes the leaves and wraps it up in tasteful white tissue paper. 

The most pleasant of surprises happens when she reaches into the deep pockets of her sweater for her wallet. 

He sees them then. The vivid pink azaleas and the gentle forget-me-not’s flowering on her pale skin. The stems seem to meander, curling tendrils climbing up her arm and he believes that she really has become a trellis in the best of ways.

 _“Take care of yourself for me.”_  He mutters, but she hears it.

“E-excuse me?” She asks, and she’s too confused to maintain her frigid gravitas. She’s caught off guard by the sincere softness in his eyes as he looks at her tattoos. There’s a certain fascination there, and she has to stifle the  _something_  from earlier. 

He’s dangerous when he’s soft like this. He’s always been.

But she can’t go back. She isn’t wilting and she isn’t vivid. She’s somewhere in the middle, relying on the strength of her own stem to carry her through. So she meets the challenge of circumstance, and tugs her sleeve further up, all the way up to her upper arm where the azaleas are in full bloom, red ribbons threaded among the petals.

“You know what they mean then?” She queries somewhat breathlessly, and her mouth is parted in a hopeful sigh, the edges  _almost_ quirking into an amused smile.

Adrien finds himself caught in expectation, wanting her smile to bloom just as surely as her stories in ink. They share a language. Two seeming strangers in this sweet little Parisian  _quartier._

“Flowers tell stories too. They’re just a little more subtle than the ones written in ink and woven by words.” He answers brightly, and his encouraging smile is somehwere in between Chat Noir’s and not.

And Adrien is taken aback by her answering grin. It’s a little hesitant, more reserved than he had expected. It’s breathtaking in its belligerence, and he doesn’t have to see her eyes to guess that they’re shining with mirth.

She merely picks up her purchase and ghosts her fingers over the bright yellow petals of the zinnia.

Her eyes trail up the ridiculous red apron he sports. She wants to laugh. Chance has flipped them, made her into the black cat and he into the ladybug. It’s all reciprocal. Even if it hurts to see who she used to be used so callously to bolster sales, the irony is too delicious not to savor. 

“What’s my story, Mr. Ladybug?” She looks as pleased as the cat who got the cream, and her smile becomes slightly mocking.

He’s too caught by the familiarity of her smile, the sly teasing undertones and the trailing red ribbons in her “story” take on a whole different flavor in his thoughts when he remembers what yellow zinnias mean.

She leaves before he can tell her.

She’s gone out the door with a little wave over her shoulder and a bubbly thanks floating behind her. It mingles with the angry tinkling of the bell as the door slams shut.

“That’s... _a daily remembrance_. She misses someone.” Adrien says to no one in particular.

Plagg merely cracks open one bright eye to peer at his chosen with a look of profound pity. His sentiment is locked away once more and he can’t be bothered with what is left of a once lucky hero. That tale is tucked away in his collection of millennial memories.

But he knows he can’t fully rest. Not when Adrien Agreste is no longer a Chat Noir and not when  _what-is-left_ has taken on the outlook of one.

He predicts what Adrien hopes for...that the girl with ink on her arms and too large sunglasses will come back to tell another story.

So Plagg will wait, because he is bored and sad, and there is an art to watching stories unfurl too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Striped or variegated carnations: I wish I could be with you. Also no or refusal...to what is up to interpretation.


	3. Diluted with water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which third interactions are awkward and we all scream because, as per the show, somehow thinly masked faces completely boggle all chances of knowing who a person is behind the mask. Also the chapter in which Adrien flirts terribly and Plagg wants to die.

She’s always been really good at forgetting without the need for auxilaries. But there’s something almost charismatic about drowning her sorrows. It’s an unnecessary attempt to forget what “ales” her.

_(Puns hurt, but she’s stubborn and refuses to let her past take away something that helps her remember.)_

She can drink until the burn of the brew becomes an inherent sign that she should drink it quickly and silently…drink it all down; the tears, the heat, the alcohol and the sadness.

But Marinette has tried this once before.

It hadn’t worked.

Still, on days when old hurts cluster like weeds between the cracks of her concrete heart, she’s tempted to go back and try again.

So she finds herself here. Her short black boots click tellingly against the gray cobblestone of the narrow street. The avenue lights are softly glowing yellow, and she envies the flitting moths that can find a spot of succor in the cold Parisian night. She shivers for more reasons than she would like to admit.

The cold seeps in through the gaps and brushes against the weeds in the cracks of her heart. She becomes frightened at the prospect of having them spread any farther than they have. Marinette pulls the zipper of her dark leather jacket higher, bracing herself against the chill. Her mouth tugs into a deeper frown, wilting her expression.

She wants to admire the night. Really, she does.

It’s almost hard to remain sulky, when the moon is a laughing crescent and the strains of an ebullient melody plucked from a guitar float tenderly through the night. The hum and buzz of the pub’s patrons is effervescent in its ups and downs. Even the colorful graffiti sprawled across the old brick walls on one side of the street fits the lively charm that surrounds the little establishment.

 _Aux Folies_ is appropriately named. It is all crazed energy and talk. Music threads a few times through the conversations, but it’s mainly just that.

It’s the perfect place to blend in among all the characters. She observes stories unfold in almost the same way she hears them in her apartment building. There are no walls here save for the ones she’s built to keep the weeds at bay.

Still, she waters these pains of hers so often that when she smiles at the tiny blonde girl who is the bartender for tonight, the response is as sweetly welcoming and practiced as could be expected.

“I’ll get you your usual, Kitty.” Rose offers, the strangest bit of melancholy and soft chastising in her eyes as she looks at her former classmate.

Marinette offers her a strained smile and a grateful look from over the rim of her sunglasses. She waves hello, with an aching fondness that only reminds her that things are not what she had pictured for their futures. These are things both welcome and not. Things almost too big to fit among the already-filled cracks of her heart.

Rose is mercifully silent.

So with another smile for the tiny bartender, softer this time, Marinette excuses herself. She settles for a creaky stool near the window. She waits for her drink and for her life to settle somewhere not as painful as yesterday.

* * *

It’s her misfortune (and his fortune) that Adrien also decides to visit Aux Folies tonight.

The lighting inside is low, but still golden and warm. He’s already thrown back several shots of something unintelligible when he sees her. She still stands out, alone and somber, drinking a clear drink that seems to be colored like vodka.

She’s perched in a manner vaguely reminiscent of a vine, her slim legs twining around her stool like tendrils clinging to a trellis. The light material of her purple blouse (quality stuff, Adrien notes) falls softly over the edges of her seat, flaring slightly like the trumpet of a morning glory.

And then, he notes that her dark leather jacket has a series of very sharp _studs_. Perhaps the term ‘morning glory’ is too gentle a moniker for her.

She still has her large sunglasses on, and he wonders if perhaps _what kind of flower she would be_ is harder to pin down because she’s still a bud. A richly colored bud hiding from the sun behind painted blooms and oversized lenses.

He chastises himself for this line of thinking.

It’s wrong to assume.

Unfortunately, this is one thing he’s always been good at.

So when he assumes that the name Adrien Agreste might just get him close enough to the girl to examine her, Plagg complains.

His voice, with a slight pitch of hysteria, rises from the middle section of Adrien’s messenger bag.

_“No…no! That’s not going to work with this one. Do you remember back at the shop? Don’t do it! Don’t try the-”_

But it’s already too late. There’s a heady thrum of excitement beating in time with the steady song still being jubilantly pried from the strings of a beaten guitar. The patrons’ conversations have all melted into fuzzy white noise, comforting and cajoling. The recessed lights over the bar are bathed with a halo of warm gold.

Adrien wonders if it is the drink or the pretty girl who reminds him of things lost that is making him feel like this.

Whatever it is, it’s powerful. Plagg struggles in his confines, pressing ineffectual claws against the side of Adrien’s thigh through the bag.

It’s already too late, because Adrien has approached the girl near the window in a few long strides and he’s already placed his most “charming” smile.

There’s a sweet kind of hesitation, a shyness that blooms fully in his watery gaze as something catches in his memory. But the drink tells no lies, and ugly puns are as much a part of Adrien’s real self as his love for company is.

Plagg’s protests grow weaker.

The battle is lost when Adrien opens his great big mouth, and lets out this atrocity-

“If you were a flower…you’d be a _daaaamn_ -delion.”

The line is delivered without any sort of lewdness. The sheepish grin that has fallen into place on Adrien’s face is charming and bashful. But the expectation dangles between them, strung like a clothesline with all of his dirty laundry out on display.

He swallows thickly, because she remains silent. The collar of his button-up shirt feels too constricting and he regrets reading those damn puns last night.

He thinks he hears Plagg’s muffled second-hand agony, but it’s a little hard to discern because that might very well be his own internal screaming.

The girl is silent. Poised and practiced in a way he used to be.

Adrien cannot tell what she feels. However, there are subtle changes in her posture that convey more than he expected. Her spine straightens, and her previously slumped shoulders rise underneath the slightly too-big sleeves of her jacket.

He thinks vaguely what a pity is it that her tattoos are covered up. He can’t see them speak, but he has the feeling that they could tell him a lot more about what she’s thinking.

After what seems like eons, she finally responds.

Her lips curl pleasantly and she’s slightly disarming because her laugh is a little sad and a little angry and a little happy.

“We meet again, Mr. Ladybug. Seems like we keep _spotting_ each other.”

Adrien laughs. He’s a little concerned that she had winced when making the pun, but his relief is so much greater.

Plagg definitely screams.

And then…(later, Adrien will admit to this having been one of the most profoundly wondrous moments of his life)… she invites him to sit.

She still has her sunglasses on, and she takes sips of her clear drink when the gaps of the conversation fall awkwardly between them.

But it’s a start.

* * *

He doesn’t find out her name. He doesn’t find out what she does for a living…not exactly.

“I’m an artist.” She smiles indulgently, and he thinks that her eyes just might be blue when she flashes a glance over the rim of her really, big sunglasses.

He can’t say for sure. The lighting is weird.

“I’m a florist.” He says a bit proudly. “But you already know that.”

He sneaks a few glances at her, anticipating her reaction. And he waits for her derision…because really, his career choice had been met with nothing but that from his father, from his professors, from his peers. Things are different from before though.

Things like this do not matter all that much anymore. He is sure of his choices, is aware of his regrets. What hadn’t worked out hadn’t been for lack of trying, and he holds his head high and waits.

But she merely nods decisively, humming a light note of satisfaction.

“You’re an artist too.”

He thinks he sees something like grudging admiration in the quirk of her mouth, but again the lighting is weird and this budding bloom is full of too many unknowns to assume. But her approval, for some strange reason, fills him with a buoyancy he hadn’t been expecting.

She doesn’t ask him about anything else, really. She knows who he is, but there was only ever one question about that.

“So why aren’t you being swarmed by an army of admirers right now?”

He shrugs, and mimics her earlier evasiveness.

“I’m an escape artist.”

She sighs and seems to mull over his answer. She taps her nails against her half-full glass _(Half-empty she would correct.)_

Finally, she laughs a little and it’s okay. Conversation after that flows. About music and flowers and drinks and food and things.

“What’s your favorite book?”

_(”The Little Prince,” she replies. He asks her if graphic novels count.)_

“Do you watch any shows?”

_(Anime is his answer. Shitty reality T.V is hers.)_

Back and forth they toss their questions and answers, sometimes automatic, sometimes not.

“Hobbies?” he asks.

She pauses for a bit, resting her head on her delicate hand and turns to look out the window.

“Finding stories.” She answers cryptically, still observing the crowded tables outside.

“Anything else?” He prods quietly, because she’s so heartachingly sad in this moment, under the strange lighting and the hazy warmth.

“Sewing.”

Then she gives a self-deprecating laugh, and he feels lost.

Adrien is left to wonder where this is going.

Intentions for this person, he has none. It was curiosity and a shared language that had driven him to seek her out. Fortune has brought them together in this tiny bar on a side road of Paris, and he isn’t going to ignore the nudges life seems to be giving him.

Not when he is looking for someone long gone.

Unfortunately for him, her phone chimes eleven. Though the Parisian night is young, the girl yawns and proceeds to stretch her arms in a very exaggerated manner.

“It’s late. I need to drive back home. It was nice talking with you, Mr. Ladybug.”

She slips away, leaving with a jaunty wave to the small bartender and a large tip in the jar placed at the edge of the bar.

It takes all of five seconds before the warm afterglow of the experience leaves Adrien feeling cold in the wake of her absence.

He also remembers just how many glasses of her clear drink she had nursed.

And that she said she had to drive home.

He runs out the door, leaving enough to pay for his drink.

This time, he will make it.

* * *

The girl is an enigma. Sad and a little angry at the world, but still hopeful in a way that’s almost pitiful.

He offers her a ride home out of habit, but then she eyes the tandem seat at the back of his very efficient, very compact mountain bike with the most judging look he’s ever experienced.

He figures his offer will not be accepted. She declines more politely than her little sneer would have signaled.

She points over to a small driveway down the street, where from a distance gleams an impressive line up of mopeds and motorcycles.

“I brought my own bike.” She laughs, “I would offer you a ride too, but-”

She gestures with a casual shrug to his somewhat silly looking bike.

It was a purchase he had been quite proud of at the beginning of his endeavor to live a simpler life, and it had taken him far across the streets of Paris.

He pats the sleek handlebars a bit defensively, an adorable pout coming to his lips that is just very much a Chat Noir expression. It physically hurts to see it.

Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to notice her momentary pain.

_(“Clueless, again.” Plagg mutters.)_

“So…you weren’t actually drinking?” Adrien repeats.

“No… I like the idea of drowning my sorrows more so than the actual act,” She says as she rolls her eyes. “So I tried the closest thing I could. Water is clear. Vodka is clear. Most people don’t come close enough to notice the difference.”

She seems to slump a little at that.

“That’s kind of…sad.” He says, and then quickly covers his mouth because he has assumed once more and said something completely rude.

She merely tosses her pretty head indignantly and lets out a very loud snort. It’s derisive, and it curls her lovely mouth into a strange mix of amusement and disbelief. Then she pauses, her expression shifting into something somber.

_“Maybe a little. ”_

She says this softly, an afterthought as floaty and weighty as the wishes blown from dandelions.

She is wilting now, her mouth puckering into a shriveled flower painted pink, and her brow is furrowed above her glasses. She hugs herself, fingers digging into the cold leather of her jacket.

She looks small.

He almost wants to point out how his bike has six different gear settings and a nice little pouch to hold his water bottle just so she can make fun of it again.

“I…I….” He starts, but nothing coherent comes out. Pity beams like lamplight from his bright green eyes and he does not realize that she will refuse it.

_(He doesn’t understand. She doesn’t want to talk.)_

Her lips tremble for a breathless moment, and then the anger returns. Bitterness fills her up, drowning the weeds in her heart until she feels temporarily full. Then, just like that, she is fine. She smiles reluctantly and breathes. She is safe behind her sunglasses and her leather jacket and her tattoos.

He can’t reach her there. So he stops trying for now.

She tucks her sunglasses into one of the pockets of her jacket and replaces it with the cover of a heavy helmet, face hidden completely under the dark visor. She’s closed off from him now, and Adrien finds himself feeling lonelier than before.

She mounts her motorcycle gracefully, slim legs slung over the sides with an expert movement.

“Good bye, Adrien.” She says. It’s muffled behind her helmet, but he thinks he can hear something sort of wistful and decided.

Then she turns the clutch and pulls away from him and the bar and the moths and the moon and the past with a deafening roar ripping from the engine.

_“Good bye.”_

Adrien gives a delayed response, again. It floats after her, just like in the flower shop and where her good bye had been hopeless, his is hopeful. But it’s just as decided because Adrien is intent on finding her again.

He watches her form on the sleek black motorcycle grow smaller and smaller as she goes down the side street to the main intersection. He nearly has a panic attack when she hangs a sharp left nearly parallel to the asphalt, tires screeching.

* * *

“She’s really something, huh Plagg?” Adrien remarks on their way home.

He speaks in between pedaling, breathless from exertion and from tonight’s strange events.

Plagg doesn’t answer, burying himself deeper into the warmth of Adrien’s bag.

He doesn’t know how to deal with this new development. The Girl Who Was Once Lucky has caught his boy’s attention again and he doesn’t know how to continue this. So he decides on letting it unfold, because the story has just flowered into something beautifully unsettling.

He thinks to himself that Tikki was always better at knowing what to do.

_Always._

* * *

She is not who she was, and she is more of a black cat than he in the moment, with her dark ensemble and grim outlook. She needs to remember this.

_(But she’s always been good at forgetting.)_

She had had to hold back anything and everything she’s always wanted to say to her one-time partner and one-time love. He’s not the same person as before either. He is neither Chat Noir nor the Adrien of her youth.

“He’s not the same, Tikki. He’s happier now. He’s better.” Marinette says as she lays down on her small bed.

She traces the leaves and the ribbons winding their way up gleefully over her arms while she speaks to the pair of dull chipped earrings on her night stand.

Again, there is no answer.

She mulls over her encounter, detailing things about his life. She files away the unimportant things, and despairs at the fact that nothing could be used for small-scale sabotage purposes.

Adrien Agreste is covered in far too many dots to make out a pattern and Marinette is snagged somewhere in the brambles of bitterness, guilt, and old fondness to really focus much.

He’s somewhere in the middle, bridging the span of years that yawned behind her, ever sweeping and changing.

His pages had turned. They had a coherent plot.

Her pages had blurred together, tears dampening the aged paper until the ink bled and she confused one word with another. Until she had run out of space to write out everything and had resorted to recording things on her skin.

It is the only way for her to remember accurately. So the next day, Juleka doesn’t question her when she bares her right hip and nearly pleads with her to help her finish this “chapter”. _(Rose may have said something to her, but Marinette let’s it slide.)_

Marinette is satisfied when her skin turns red and slightly inflamed underneath the brilliantly purple anemone blossoming over flesh and bone for her to read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for this taking so long. Thank you so much for all your support. I need to answer everyone's lovely comments. Ahh...I'm so sorry!
> 
> Okay flower symbolism if anyone is curious: Morning glories in Chinese folklore represent the one day for lovers to meet. Or in Victorian language of flowers, mortality or love.
> 
> The purple anemone flower can be a symbol of "dying love" or anticipation for a positive note.


	4. Maybe this could be something good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something about promises, locks and disguises...and in which Adrien is amazingly patient with Marinette's tendencies to hide.
> 
> AHH It's been so long...life got in the way? I fell into another fandom? Idkkk. But Thank you to everyone who waited so patiently and commented. Now to reply to everyone...ahh...sorry.

_You’ll always be my Ladybug. Even when I’m gone, you’ll still be her.” She says breathlessly, frail and weary as she rests her head against the base of Marinette’s thumb._

_She rests securely in her chosen’s palms…warm and loved, even as she curls into herself and heaves a large yawn._

_Marinette doesn’t answer her, merely presses a tender little kiss against her kwami’s forehead._

_Tikki sleeps, dreaming of rain that falls from a wilting flower, the translucent droplets weighing heavy on veiny petals, clinging softly with the most melancholy tenacity._

_Marinette never expects she’ll have to say good-bye twice._

* * *

Marinette wakes to the sound of rain singing against her window. It makes the glass rattle and pierces loud…louder than the lonely sobs of the single man next door and louder than the almost perfect piano song across the hall.

The last wisps of her dream fade in the gray grasp of the light that has just managed to sieve through the clouds. She vaguely feels a hollow regret, fingers fisting into her rumpled sheets as she murmurs faint protests into her pillow.

She had dreamt of Tikki. Of Tikki and a lie.

The realization winds through her, coiling and springing into action slowly as she pushes against her mattress to sit up listlessly. Her hair falls around her, long and unkempt, streaming just as gently as the water trails on the glass.

Her tattoos peek vibrantly over the shirt that slips down her shoulder, flowering anew when she heaves a sigh.

“Always?” Marinette says bitterly. She feels everything distantly….hazy and cold. She doesn’t want this…she’s never wanted this, but it’s what was given to her.

Anger at the immense vacuum of circumstance left behind. Slight irritation at the faint stinging pain that still blooms on her hip. Sadness that marks her fortune…it’s all there, a garden of emotions wild and tangled…tendrils burrowing fast and deep.

Still, the blooms in her heart seek a weakened sun, and she wants to talk.

And so she turns to rail against a pair of red earrings that remain woefully silent on her night stand.

But the rain pricks cruel and blessed at the corners of her eyes when she finds that they are no longer there.

* * *

She runs. It’s all she can do, even as the rain soaks through her green flats. It dashes harshly against her bare legs, shading the gray of her swishing skirt darker and darker.

Paris is a city of starry flares, lights blurring faintly in the grim morning into fiery blooms as vibrant as the ones she sees in the flower shop window every morning.

She doesn’t know if it’s her tears or the rain that make the city look this way, but she can’t care much when she’s looking for someone long gone.

Marinette won’t say her name, because luck is never one to come when called. And somewhere among her heart’s garden, there rests a budding realization…something she doesn’t want to water because it will be painful.

Still she runs, slower than before because she is no longer Ladybug. She’s even forgotten her red ribbons. Her hair is plastered to her raw cheeks, falling damp and limp around the hood of her black raincoat.

And Paris calls out to her…tells her to _stop, stop, stop_ because what she’s looking for is in the past. La Seine teases her as she pauses on a bridge. She stands still, breathless. It moves forward, effortless. Murky waters mock her inability to let go…even now her fingers grasp at the wrought iron railing, tight and pale.

She wonders if maybe she can cling tight enough to become a lock on this bridge, a promise to be kept…a thing to be mired in a moment in time.

In the water, she sees her reflection and she thinks she looks vaguely like a lost alley cat, bedraggled and lonely…barely clinging onto happiness with desperate claws.

She gives a bitter laugh…she laughs until she cries, heaving sobs because she can barely take much more of this freedom.Her breaths are still shallow, hitching slightly as they drift into misty condensation. So she takes the few moments she needs to, idly watching the water stream its way under the bridge. Vaguely, she wonders if she can bound across the cobblestone and find the same water…the same ripples…wind there way on the other side. But it’s impossible to tell, because swathes of rain shift the surface and water is water…indiscernible from one drop to the next.

Time passes…it always does. Her sorrow fades a bit. She feels worn out. She can’t cry anymore…the rain is doing that for her. And the realization blooms fully.

She’ll never be Ladybug again. Tikki is gone…has been gone for quite some time. Marinette wants to leap again. She wants to twist through the air and taste the wind on her tongue as she stands high above the city that moves forward.

But it’s all gone.

She looks at the rushing water. The bridge is relatively lonely, only a few pedestrians strolling under the cover of umbrellas.

So she closes her eyes, indulging her wishes just one more time when she hoists herself up delicately onto the concrete base of the railing. It’s a few feet high, and it lifts her up until she’s looming over the streaming river. Her heart beat picks up for a brief moment, the rush of wind and moisture against her face is bracing.

Her nostrils flare to catch the scent of petrichor and river water, eyes bright as they shift to look up at the sky.

The railing just barely digs into the tops of her hips when she’s like this, and she’s still clinging tightly onto the iron.

“Goodbye Tikki…wherever you are.” She whispers, love and a bittersweet fondness lacing the memories that flash like cards in her mind. The rain is blessedly cleansing as it runs down her face and neck. It’s already soaked through the collar of her sweater, slipping past the large hood of her jacket…but it’s good.

Her flowers needed watering.

A sense of peace settles over her, and she’s just about to step off of the railing and back onto the bridge, when she is nearly startled into the water by a despairingly familiar voice shouting-

“Don’t jump!”

* * *

Plagg had sensed the shift in chance. Those strangely twisting particles in the universe had alighted on his whiskers and let him know just what sorts of butterflies had waved their wings to change something. (That’s only a matter of speech. Nooroo is safe and sound somewhere comforting and away from trouble.)

Chaos theory is a complicated affair and it’s one he’s grown bored of.

Still, this is an interesting change and he tells that to his boy as soon as he feels it.

“Luck has made a move. She’s disappeared fully this time.” He drawls, idly clawing off a piece of Camembert as he rests on the slim wooden table that separates Adrien’s smallish living room from his brightly decorated kitchen.  
  
The rain is growing steadily stronger, rustling through the plants that line the old balcony.

Adrien gives a muffled shout from the kitchen, peering around the corner of the partitioning counter top to glance at Plagg with mute understanding. There are crumbs trailing down his tasteful maroon sweater. A piece of a baguette hangs from his mouth.

His tousled hair falls messily over his wide green eyes, and he can’t be bothered to do anything about it because he’s got so many questions.

Questions that flit about in his mind, alighting on flowering thoughts and painting him with colors worth dreaming of.

“You’d better fix that bread head of yours before you go to work.” Plagg advises, thoughtfully chewing on some more cheese. He floats lazily now, eyes glinting in the dim light of the rainy day.

He looks so carefree, nine lives clearly taken full advantage of for all the world to know.

But Adrien knows better. It’s evident in the curl of his tail and in the slight sneer that twists Plagg’s derisive smile.

His cat is vexed and somehow, it brings to mind a girl with sharp eyes hidden behind large sunglasses…emotions hidden behind shards of words that echo with the barest sarcasm…all to distract from the things they’ve hidden deep down.

Still, the chances of finding her again are slim in a city as large as Paris. So thoughts of what-if and maybe and possibly are too much like stinging gnats to be worth listening to.

Adrien decides that it’s best to start the day on a cheerful note, and quickly swallows down what’s left of his baguette along with his bubbling questions.

He bounds enthusiastically to his room, long legs striding across the creaky wood floor to the tune of his inexorable optimism.

Plagg looks on at him sadly, the molecules shifting in Adrien’s wake telling him that it’s almost time to make his own move. When the sounds of last minute grooming sound from the hallway leading to the bedroom, the kwami lets his sadness have its way.

He thinks that the potted pink cyclamen on the white counter top is oddly prophetic. Even their delicately, singular petals unfurl in a manner most like a farewell.

“Resignation and goodbye, huh?” He muses quietly, no longer feeling an appetite at the thought.

He’s still unusually silent when Adrien gently places him in his satchel and they head out into the rain for another day at the flower shop.

* * *

Tikki once explained the concept of Ladybug’s luck as such: “A manipulation of multiple probabilities across Space and Time to bring about the most ideal of situations.”

Marinette’s head had spun. Math had never been her strong suit. The numbers devolved into indecipherable symbols, hazily spinning through her thoughts. And so Tikki had merely laughed that sweet, tender laugh of hers and waved everything off as “magic.”

And magic it had been. Little, everyday things that could have been up to chance made her life that much easier. It was as if all the strife and struggle of defending Paris had been soothed by the universe. Tiny, everyday miracles like catching the crosswalk light at the correct time or forgetting an assignment on the day a teacher was absent. Marinette took it all in stride, clumsy footsteps treading a sure path with every decision she made.

Then Tikki had fallen asleep.

 “Creation requires much more energy than destruction.” She had explained before it happened that she could only fight entropy for so long before it took its toll and Marinette had merely nodded her head, the red of luck leaching from her life to be replaced by an inky void.

The shift in luck was surprising to say the least. Tiny mishaps took the place of tiny miracles. Things that added up to more than larger nuisances, like missing the bus that would take her to her first big interview and getting the date of Adrien’s departing flight wrong. (There was also losing her engagement ring in the kitchen sink, but that may have been something else entirely.)

Still, she slogged through the days. Marinette’s always been really good at finding something to fight for…and she fought for her creations…the things that took that self-same energy to bloom into fruition, wrapping silky tendrils around the models. Yet, it all came to nothing. In the end, all she had left was a worn sketchbook and a pair of dull, red earrings.

But it was never enough to make her want to stop. It was never enough to make her want to look into La Seine and deem that a perfect place to sleep…

So it confuses her to no end when someone shouts “Don’t Jump!” beyond all the pitter patter of the rain. She yelps. And she does jump in surprise, her arms wheeling to balance her on the slim concrete ledge. Her soaked flats with their worn soles slip out from under her, squeaking derisively as she loses her footing.

Fortunately…or not, she flails backwards, her back arching as her fingers just barely miss catching that wrought iron railing. The world tilts, her hands still reaching in tandem with her streaming hair for something to hold on to.

The gray sky wheels above her excruciatingly quick, a little blinding as her eyes open wide to look for a silver lining…because even if she’s in pain, she’s free and she’d really rather not let it all end because she cracked her head on a bridge.

She braces herself for impact, every line of her body taut until she’s sure even the flowers on her skin are furled tight against the hurt. At least the cat on her back might land on its feet, she muses.

There’s a brief screeching sound, like metal clattering against stone. A hurried beat of steps, slapping haphazardly against the wet floor and his voice.

It’s the same and not. A richly toned series of inflections that fall into a series of indecent swears as he catches her. Despite the slight harshness of it, there’s something exceedingly warm in the sound, muffled slightly against the cover of her hood.

Her feet are set against solid ground once more, and she’s awkwardly wrapped up in his embrace, his arms solid and supportive around her waist. Still, her knees are trembling a little and she’s breathing fast and shallow, eyes wide under the sweep of her matted bangs.

She finds herself shifted ever so gently, so that her head is against a broad shoulder and cushioned against something very soft.

“Are you okay, Miss?!” He asks earnestly, and he attempts to peer down at her face, a tender look of concern crossing his green eyes so genuinely, she does what comes naturally around him.

Her hands, previously limp at her sides, fly up to pull her dark hood lower over her face with a groan of embarrassment.

 _Why? Why? Why?_ Runs through her mind, jamming the cogs of her brain until it’s all she can think of. Why of all people did she have to be startled and saved by Adrien Agreste, florist extraordinaire?

“Do you need me to call a hospital?” He sounds a little less worried, and a lot more dubious. She can’t seem him well, but history is a powerful thing, and she’s long learned how to read him on the tone of his voice alone.  
She nods mutely, the sound of her heart louder in her ears than the tip tap of the rain.

“I’m so glad you’re okay.” He sighs in relief, and she can feel the tension she hadn’t felt until now eek out of his shoulder beneath her. Even the hold he has around her loosens, and she finds it easier to gain her bearings and set her feet even more firmly on the ground.

“T-thank you.” She mutters, reluctant to speak because she knows he’ll recognize her voice from their not-date at Aux Folies. She hopes that maybe her sobbing may have roughened her tone enough to make her sound different. But Marinette’s luck is void. Her ears are unadorned. There are no ribbons in her hair.

“Zinnia Girl?”

There’s no mistaking that stupid note of unabashed glee rising in his words. There’s no mistaking that breathless wonder at finding her again. And holy crap…he gave her the dumbest nickname he could have come up with, but still she finds something stirring in the pit of her stomach at the thought.

Marinette doesn’t know if she wants to laugh or cry, but the smell of roses drifts from him, and it reminds her of her reality. She tears away rapidly, whirling to face him fully so fast, that she has to take a few stumbling steps to regain her balance. She presses her frigid fingers against her temples, outside of the hood to both keep her cover and massage away that familiar headache threading its way up her neck.

“Woah…” He says, stepping forward with outstretched arms just in case he has to catch her again. She takes one more step away, delicately. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

His voice really is gentle now…soft and coaxing beyond the rain and the river rushing.

Marinette feels that same unwanted something from before unfurl, pink and fresh in her chest, rising high above the concrete she’s built to keep the weeds at bay. It reaches up and up, winding through her throat and blocking her words, only to bloom fully across her cheeks.

Irritation however is an even faster growing plant, and she tends to it because she knows how to take care of it best. She lets it root through her words, acerbic and just a little hesitant.

“I’m okay. Thank you for catching me.”

He tilts his head, still overwhelmingly careful as he looks at her. She knows she’s probably a mess. She’s always had the upper hand in their previous encounters, but she is here now, dressed in a drab dark raincoat in a damp skirt and sweater. Her long inky hair is loose and bedraggled, clinging to the her in a stringy mess. At least he can’t see much of her face.

“Are…are you sure? Because you were a-about to…about to…” He hesitates, unsure of how to broach such a macabre subject. She can see from underneath her hood that he’s wringing his hands, starkly pale fingers clutching slightly at his maroon (of, course) sweater. She can hear the soft swish of his tan trench coat, slow and oddly nervous as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

She gives a humorless bark of laughter, because no, she wasn’t going to jump and because his shouting had almost surprised her enough to do so.

“I wasn’t about to jump. I was just…looking at the water…and you surprised me enough that I almost did end up in La Seine.” She says through clenched teeth, dragging out the words by force past that newly blooming pink monstrosity that’s made it’s way up her throat. She debates on telling him off a little more, but petulantly admits that he did her a favor afterwards. She drops her hands, let’s them fall limp at her side again. “Thank you, again.”

“Y-you’re welcome…I think.”

He seems to deliberate for a few seconds, nervousness evident in the bobbing of his throat as he swallows thickly and in the way his eyes furtively dart between her and his fallen bike.

She notes with not a small bit of gratitude that he had let it fall in his haste to catch her. His leather satchel is thrown on the wayside, half crushed by the back wheel of the bicycle. The front tire is still spinning slowly, spokes glistening silver in the dim sunlight. It makes her think of a wheel of fortune and she wonders if this is supposed to be the jackpot of her experiences.

If so, she’ll be sure not to thank whoever is hosting this travesty of a game show.

She lets her gaze drift away from him, bending her head more so that her hair can fall forward to cover more of her face. She curls in on herself, shrinking and wilting in a way he can’t bear to see.

(And he knows it has most everything to do with him.)

So he gives her the out she’s looking for.

“O-okay. If you’re sure…I’m going to go to work now.” He concludes, heaving a sigh as he walks back to fix his bike. There’s another heavy clatter as he places it sturdily on the ground again, much in the same way he had righted her.

She watches him collect his satchel, noting that he shoots it an apologetic glance as he lowers it across himself again. He murmurs something quietly in its general direction, and she can’t quite catch the words, but something infinitely caring crosses his face when he does.

“What a weirdo.” She muses gently, but something about the whole exchange seems familiar, even the way he affectionately pats the bag. Her breath catches again, because the image of him is superimposed with one of her, talking discreetly to a laughing Tikki hidden in her purse.  
She’s always been good at forgetting…but not that good.

She blinks through her tears, about to reach forward and let every word she’s ever wanted to say leap from her lips…but Adrien beats her to it when he turns around one final time to her and gestures with his free arm towards the smallish flat rack on the back of his bike.

“Need a ride?” He asks invitingly. “I’m going to the shop. I can take you anywhere in between here and there.”

His grin sharpens the tiniest bit, his eyes challenging in the most well-meaning way as he looks at her. She feels her heart stutter because he looks like Chat Noir in that instant, rain dripping in between the planes of his stupidly perfect face. Blonde hair tousled in a fetching wind swept look.

She is filled with nothing but irritation now, her pride wounded. She knows this is revenge for her little snark about his bicycle back at the bar. But again…Marinette has always been good at finding something to fight for, and she decides that today, it will be her dignity.

So she lets her spine extend fully, walking steadily forward, feet squelching in her soaked shoes as she approaches him. She stops only a few feet away, staying close to the back of the bike he’s holding up. She doesn’t look at him, but merely slaps a decisive hand on the flat metal panel of the rack with a resounding ring.

“Yes please, Mr. Ladybug. Just take me to your shop. I’ll make my way from there.”

He looks startled by that, and she merely laughs a derisive song of manic freedom, still reeling from the entire experience.

Adrien drifts into a positively delighted laugh of his own as he swings one leg over his bike to settle himself. He balances it carefully, still huffing with humor as she seats herself sideways on the rack, primly settling her legs together and tucking in her skirt under her thighs to keep it from fluttering. She reminds him very distinctly of a wet cat, sitting in a precarious perch with all the gravitas afforded to a feline.

Her hood is still well over her face, only her pert nose and lovely, quirking lips showing. He gives up trying to get a good look because it isn’t fair to her and however odd it maybe, he’s always been really good at respecting an individual’s privacy…no matter how much hurt it may have caused him in the end.

The rain grows a bit stronger, the drops becoming a veritable assault by the time he remembers he has an umbrella in his bag. He pulls it out quickly and hands it to her, still keeping the bike balanced amazingly well with her weight included.

“You can hold it over the both of us.” He chirps, still smiling in that infuriatingly cheery manner of his. Even in the rain, he shines like sunbeams and blooms like golden flowers…dandelions to be precise.

She frowns a bit, taking the vibrant red umbrella with large black dots in her trembling grip. Her earlier decision shifts into something more concrete, and she renews her vows to change the theme of the damned flower shop before the year is up.

“What’s wrong?” He inquires very sweetly at her bitter expression. Her mouth has twisted into a grimace, and her nose wrinkles in distaste. He’s looking at her over his shoulder, so the fact that he can read her mood in that position is a little disconcerting.

Marinette doesn’t answer, merely flips open the painful reminder with a loud fwip. Her expression doesn’t get any brighter, but his earnest care prompts her to grab onto the edge of the rack with one hand and lift the umbrella over both of them with the other.

“It’s cold.” Is all she says after that…and he starts their journey in silence, legs slowly pumping the squeaking pedals as they make their way off of the bridge and into a small street.

The minutes pass in silence, only the sound of rain against their umbrella and the rushing of cars filling their space. It’s oddly comforting, their slow progression peaceful and melancholy as the wheels turn over asphalt and puddles.

She’s forced to lean her shoulder against his back for support when a divot in the ground jostles her.

“Sorry! Sorry!” He calls over his shoulder, the edge of sheepish smile just barely visible to her.

She doesn’t answer for a few moments, eyes dimly taking in the slowly passing gray buildings and signs, the lights no longer flaring into stars. They are sharp, cutting clear through her growing haze to show her what her reality is again.

“It’s okay…it’s fine.” She finally answers, turning her gaze to look at the back of his head. She notes the way his hair is still that same vaguely curling texture, the tips of which brush the collar of his jacket. He’s somewhere in between Chat and Adrien again, and it’s obvious in the way that his hair is no longer styled into a sleek side swept affair that he’s taken to his new freedom with all the enthusiasm he could manage.

She smiles fondly at that. She presses her shoulder closer to his back because it’s still cold and he is very warm. He’s always been, even if it hurt her in the end. But he’s here now and she’s not alone in the rain. She’s clinging to the back of his bike instead of the wrought iron railing. Maybe…just maybe, this could be something good.

Something new, something old becoming a wonderful amalgamation…still there’s a part of her that contests all of this and dredges up old hurts as bright as the red glow of the umbrella she holds over them both.

There’s an art to accepting. Marinette’s just barely learning how to be good at that.

* * *

The flowers are somehow even more glaring on a rainy day. The bright oranges, yellows, red and pinks hurt her eyes and so she decides to train them on her host, drifting to and fro as he strides across his shop with a demeanour most confident.

She sits in a spare wooden chair, near the glass counter top as he bustles about preparing to open the shop. The bits of her that are jaded wonder if he’ll really get any business today. The holiday season has passed and the rain doesn’t bode well for customers of any sort.

She has no appointments for today either, so she may be projecting her own dismal thoughts on his affairs. She chides herself thoroughly for this, because assumptions are never any good.

Her hood is still over her face and the temperature inside the shop is slightly lower than normal, mostly because Adrien is still puttering around, placing flowers in silvery and glass vases. He is clearly in his element, surety in every clip of a stem and turn of leaf he makes. He hums appreciatively when he finishes a particularly lovely arrangement of broad sunflowers and orange lilies in a clear blue vase.

Marinette grudgingly agrees that he is good at his craft…and she can’t deny a fellow artist his due.

“It’s…uh…it’s really pretty.” She says quietly, her voice still slightly scratchy from her sobbing earlier. She means to say more when he stops to look at her with a kind smile, but her frame is wracked by a series of vehement sneezes. She hunches over, muffling them into the crook of her elbow.

His grin drops into a frown of intricate worry, berating himself for not thinking of the temperature because Plagg never complained about it and he himself was too caught up in the business of running a flower shop.

“Oh god. Sorry. You can take off your jacket if you want? I’ll put it near the heater in the back so it can dry off?” He moves towards a fearful Marinette, entirely made up of earnest care as he extends a hand to take her coat for her.

She merely shrinks back into her chair, feeling entirely trapped in a forest of blooms. He looms larger and larger and she struggles to catch her breath, shaking her head vehemently while pulling her hood farther down her face.

“No.” Is all she can muster, her lips pale and shaking as she holds herself close together…looking less like the flowering vine he had pictured her as back at the bar and more like a barely opening seed.

He stops, letting his hand drop to his side again, guiltily. He never meant to make her feel so uncomfortable, but her jacket is still wet and he had left his on the coat rack in the back room without thinking about how she might feel.

“Ah…I’m sorry, I didn’t think about uh…hold on.” Adrien seems positively harrowed as he moves towards the countertop and grabs something from his prone satchel. She can’t see beyond his broad back, but he seems to be doing that odd murmuring again.

This time she can catch a few words.

“Sorry…cheese….promise….so sorry.”

She doesn’t have time to contemplate any of it before he’s standing in front of her, tall and lithe, yet bending over at his waist to offer her the most familiar powder blue scarf. Her fingers tingle with the vague memory of soft yarn and knitting needles pressing against the tips as she worked…hour upon hour to create a heartfelt gift.

He looks at her with that same patience he’s always had.

“Here you go. You can wear this if you want.” He offers it easily, and she feels just torn between how simply he gives it to her and how even still has it in the first place. He takes her silence as nervousness again.

He hastily continues, rubbing the back of his head in fresh embarrassment.

“Ah..Just until your coat dries up again. I need this back…it was a gift from a person I care about…a lot.”

Marinette feels the bloom in her throat bloom anew, petals growing too large and twisting into a knot that she can’t get rid of. She feels the new leaves reaching until they prick the corners of her eyes, blurring her sight until she knows she’s going to cry.

She keeps her head bent down as she takes it from him, almost reverently.

Unexpectedly, as soon as the scarf is carefully settled on her lap, he turns around. She hears the grating squeak of his shoes against the white tiles and looks up in surprise. She’s met with the sight of his broad back, the taut lines of his shoulder evident even under his thick sweater.

The ties of his Ladybug apron are tied loosely, and he fiddles with them awkwardly while looking away from her.

“You can take it off really quick and just hand it to me. I promise I won’t look.” He says very softly, a slight flush creeping its way up the back of his neck.

The tears fall then, rolling down her cheeks until they drop on the blue scarf, seeping deep into the wool to dye it a richer color bleeding over the careful stitches.

She almost considers handing it back to him. She almost considers letting her hood fall from her face and to tell him who she is and who she used to be…but he’s probably forgotten her. He doesn’t even know that this was her gift to him…she’d let him assume so long ago. His happiness over hers, always.

Not this time.

So she stands up and quickly slips off her jacket, wincing at how cold and wet the canvas felt in her hands. She drapes it over the back of the chair carefully and then proceeds to wind the scarf around the lower half of her face. She crosses the hanging ends over her head, tucking in her hair behind the entire thing so that what she’s made vaguely resembles a butchered version of a monk’s cowl.

Her face is full hidden, save for her nose and the freckles dusted across.

Wordlessly, she stands and grabs her jacket, placing it in his waiting hands gratefully. She gasps a little when her fingers slide against his, cold against his warmth…and they feel far rougher than before.

It’s only a brief moment, because soon he’s moved his hands and the jacket in front if him and is preparing to leave to the backroom.

There’s much she has yet to learn about him, and more she can learn still under the guise of Zinnia Girl.

So she settles her chin deeper into the folds of the scarf, smelling the scent of blooms in spring. But the garden in her heart sways in rebellion and she decides to indulge in one selfish wish.

She winds her arms around his middle, laying her head hesitantly against the middle of his back…it’s only now that she realizes how much he’s grown…and how much she hasn’t…in many ways.

But she can try. Starting now. He’s stiff under her embrace and she’s still keeping the front of her body a hesitant distance away, awkwardly hunching over.

“Thank you,” is all she can say to him and then she let’s go, decisively pulling away and walking towards the pretty sunflower arrangement from before.

He looks after her, mouth agape and humor bubbling in his chest at the absurdly extravagant methods she used to cover her face from him.

But he caught a brief flash of her eyes…and he still thinks they might be blue…but the lighting is weird with all the blooms in his store. Droplets clinging to her cheeks and the fibers of his scarf that catch the florescent light and glint gold.

It doesn’t escape Adrien’s notice that she’d been crying. But he can say nothing as he makes his way to the back room, cheeks flushed and a hope like none before unfurling in his chest.

Plagg and his ring disappear from inside the satchel, unnoticed amidst the pages of this story that’s unfolding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So plagg and Tikki disappeared...technically? where is this going ahh


	5. Mixing Metaphors in a Garden of Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a busy bee makes some waves in a puddle.
> 
> Chamomile-patience, Dandelion - wishes being granted.

 

_There once was a ladybug who might have been in love with a handsome black cat. But she was scared of many things and winter came. She had to flee._

_She slept in the petals of a flower black as ink._

_When she woke, her beautiful red shell was dark all over._

_She was reminded of her cat and it was bittersweet._

* * *

 

There’s an art to timing. Notably, it’s one of the few arts that cannot be mastered. Not when circumstance and chance and the universe are all set into their own patterns, caring nothing at all for the people that must exist within their confines.

Marinette’s long since known Time was never on her side.

It’s been days, time quietly lacing roots through her earlier resolve. She’s told herself countless times over the past week that she would try her best to give him the best of her. The her that was long ago cloaked in red and luck.

But his flowers are curling brown and sad in the display window. There’s no condensation and the shop is dark. The word Closed still sends her away. Her irritation and curiosity wind around each other in her chest as she glares balefully at the innocent sign.

Still she waits underneath the battered black umbrella. The frigid rain bounces off of it gleefully, landing with merry plops near the heels of her black boots.

Her fingers are cold and stiff as they curl like young vines around the wooden handle. Her free hand is tucked into the pocket of her jade cardigan.

“Well, so much for that.” She mutters bitterly.

Despite herself, she feels achingly thwarted. She feels the chill of disappointment delicately frost over the lovely pink bloom that had so often brushed across her cheeks at the thought of him.

And the tears well up at the sight of the dying blooms and her hope begins to desiccate in the folds of her heart. There’s no water left in her to take care of her heart’s garden, it’s probably all being redirected to her eyes.

There’s a pitter patter of footsteps, light and delicate across the puddles.

From the corner of her eyes, just blocked by the side of her sunglasses, she catches a flash of flaxen hair.

But the frost stays because it isn’t the man with the dandelion hair. It’s simply Chloe.

Her presence isn’t implausible, merely unexpected. And it’s with all the artifice of wealth and gold that gleams too brightly that Chloe makes her presence known.

Marinette doesn’t have to turn to know its her. The heavy jangling of jewelry and the cloying sweetness of her rich perfume are enough of a confirmation.

Not even the soft thud of Chloe’s obviously Burberry umbrella against hers is enough to rouse her from the melancholy that’s wrapped around her.

(It’s comfortable, under the frost, her heart’s gone to pins and needles.)

“I don’t remember booking an appointment for you today.” Marinette tells her quietly, with much less snap in her tone than usual. It’s enough to startle even her former high school enemy (her current best customer).

“I’m not here for an appointment.” Chloe says simply, none of the usual playful challenge lacing her tone either.

And Chloe thinks Marinette fits oddly well with the scene beyond the glass. Her - maybe - friend is small and huddled over. The sleeves of her sweater are too long, draping like drooping leaves beyond the tips of her fingers.

“Do you want to see him or not?” Chloe asks impatiently, her eyes rolling at the melodrama unfurling so stupidly between her two friends.

Marinette lets irritation flower across her lips, lets the growing leaves guide her words.

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to do here. Now please go away if you don’t have an appointment.” She bites out, adding in a few thorns into her request so that Chloe will just leave her in peace.

But Chloe merely folds her arms, and gives a slight scream of frustration.

“You could have just asked anyone of us for his phone number…or his address, you know?”

Marinette simply shrugs her shoulders. The rain drives harder beyond the lilt of their conversation. There’s a growing puddle that laps at the tips of her toes, and she shifts her feet a bit so that she’s facing towards the puddle and away from Chloe.

What a pitiful cat she must make…unable to drive away a tiny buzzing bee. Then again, what had she expected from being in front of a flower shop?

It seems even dying flowers can still attract bugs.

But there’s a blur that manifests in front of her face, and for a second she almost believes there’s a real life insect flying dangerously close to her wide eyes.

It’s only Chloe’s tattoo. The delicate lines of black and yellow nearly coming to life on her hand as she waves a torn piece of paper in front of Marinette.

There’s a momentary pause, in which Marinette’s thoughts shift from self-congratulations on a great tattoo to stilted annoyance.

Her lips crumple into the familiar petals of consternation, her cheeks coloring with the red of anger and she reaches for Chloe’s hand.

But she’s too slow, and Chloe dances away, twirling her umbrella cheerfully overhead.

“You’re such a scared little cat. Just admit it, you never asked because you’re a coward.” She taunts, digging her chin into the creamy fur that rings her yellow quilted coat. For good measure, she kicks out her foot into the puddle, splashing water harmlessly onto Marinette’s rainboots.

It’s a little too much for Marinette. Her fear had, for the first time in a long time, died enough for her words to fruit into something meaningful. His gentle consideration that day on the bridge had warmed her garden like sunbeams. Enough to coax her happiness to bloom past the loss of Tikki.

Enough to bring her here everyday since then so that she can see him again.

So Chloe’s words prick unfairly, stinging painfully at her remaining fears. She shelters what little pride she has left by laying out her thoughts, brick by brick, as she builds up the walls in her heart to protect what remains of her fragility.

“Goodbye, Chloe. Call me when you want another tattoo.” Marinette says stiffly as she lifts her umbrella higher and turns on the heel of her foot away in the opposite direction.

What stops her is a barely heard plea. Something measured and full of regret when Chloe calls for her.

“Please…please just go. He’s not okay. Something happened and he’s not talking to anyone…not even Nino.”

The world is blurred once again in her eyes, and she hastily wipes away her tears with her oversized sleeve. She blinks a bit, looking upwards towards her umbrella. It’s a little see-through, and the droplets seem to roll down and around the dark material like a lopsided game of roulette.

Again, if this was a game show, she’d be sure not to thank the host for the poor turn of events.

She turns to look at Chloe.

She asks her why. It seems to be the only question that matters these days. Chloe answers her quietly as she presses the crumpled piece of paper into Marinette’s frigid fingers.

“Because not even all that ink can cover up your red, Ladybug.”

Chloe leaves before Marinette can say a word.

The Girl Who Was Once Lucky watches in horrified resolve as the sleek black car that apparently had driven Chloe here disappears around the corner.

She watches the wheels turn and turn, dredging up the muddy waters that pooled in the potholes of her sweet, little quartier.

And she feels just as muddled as the rippling rain water, her walls crumbling uselessly as she makes a decision. 

__

* * *

 

_There once was a black cat who fell in love with a ladybug. When the seasons changed and she flew away, he slept among a bed of roses until their thorns made him bleed. He was red and black all over._

_He looked at his reflection and was happy._

_He was reminded of her._

* * *

 

He’s known for a while that at some point he would have to say goodbye.

He just hadn’t been expecting that his chance would disappear from right beneath his possession. And still, it leaves a bleak gaping hole in his chest from where Plagg’s existence has been yanked away.

His hard earned optimism is slowly draining him. Even he has to admit, he looks colorless as he stares at the sallow reflection in his mirror.

His cheeks are a little gaunt, and his pallor is as creamy as the white roses that are probably wilting in his shop this very moment. His eyes are dull, the jade in them is chipped and doesn’t reflect the light the same way as before.

But his gaze is a thousand miles long as he looks within himself. His heart is still beating, warm and thin beneath the soft wool of his red sweater.

Even so, the red is merely a shallow carapace meant to remind everyone else that they were once protected by a hero who wore the hue. There’s hardly any confidence that he can even do this right.

He feels like an imposter, because the garden of his heart is too barren to sustain much besides the affection he holds for his loved ones, fierce sense of responsibility, and a lovely blue rose known as sorrow.

His selfishness, in his mind, is what had choked out everything else. The red he wears is too keep her alive in his thoughts.

It’s only a borrowed red after all.

He shakes his head, hands curling on the edge of his sink, the chipped porcelain digging a bit into his palms. He’d rather feel that than the lightness of a ringless finger.

And the Girl Who Was Once Ladybug had brought with her the light of the stars. Something guiding and something beautiful in their distance, and he reaches past the haze to think of that.

But her sad smile reminds him of Plagg, and it sends a piercing melancholy through him.

Something as sudden as the urgent knocking at his door. The sounds are staccato and softly reverberate through the pale wood. As silly as it is, he can feel the vibrations echo through his chest, setting his few flowers swaying with anticipation.

He doesn’t let himself give it another moment’s thought. He simply strides out of the bathroom and wrenches the door open.

And as he does, she stumbles forward into his home. Her hand had still been poised to knock, and his sudden action causes her to teeter forward.

Her other hand holds out a battered black umbrella to her side, helping her keep a clumsily elegant balance.

Her eyes are still maybe-blue behind her large sunglasses, but her mouth is a bouquet of flowering questions and her long hair is wet and wrapped around her like the petals of a budding violet.

Before he can say anything, she’s regained her gravitas. She stands a little shyly, her legs twined around each other like delicate stems just underneath the dark petals of her skirt. The few inky azaleas he can see are crawling up her neck, tense with her excitement.

She peers up at him over her sunglasses, bright eyes watching him as warily as a stray cat.

“Your flowers are wilting.” She says breathlessly. “Are you okay?”

And for the first time since he’s met her, he wants to tell her to please go away. To please let the dandelion man drown in the rain. To let his falsely bright colors wilt together until he was expected to be nothing but a muddled brown.

But the fact that she’s here…beyond all expectations and hope…the fact that even wet and off-balance, she glitters with an almost silvery brilliance makes him crack open the gates of his garden for her.

He shakes his head, looking away in shame because she’s been through this loss before him and she had held up so much better.

She doesn’t know that he knows who she is. So his lips are sealed with the mortar of a promise kept and an apology still overdue.

(Yet she’s so much more astute than he remembers. There’s an art to observation and her bluebell eyes catch the emptiness of his ring finger within the first few seconds.)

There’s a brief clatter from her umbrella hitting the floor.

He’s in danger of mixing metaphors when he thinks just how warm black cats can be when they wrap their petals around you.

Adrien’s thoughts are whirling just as surely as the stars span across the heavens, because she’s hugging him fully. Her head is leaning against his shoulder and her hands are barely grasping onto the back of him, but she’s here.

He reciprocates, mostly because he’s in danger of drowning and he needs someone to hold onto right now. He needs a trellis because his stem is weak and he’s wilting, so her wraps his thin branches around her and cranes his golden leaves towards her.

Her warmth nearly melts the mortar, but there’s shame and fear that tangle around his tongue with a painful twist. The words fall from him with much difficulty.

“Will it always hurt like this?” He asks her dully, his breath threading through a few loose strands of her hair that float close to his chin.

She stiffens only slightly, and he wishes he could see her inky flowers beyond all the green she’s used to cover them. They’d probably tell him a lot more about what she’s thinking.

She pulls back to look up at him and this time he catches that her eyes are blue…blue as the delicate petals of bluebell flowers, but her hair and sunglasses still cover most of her face.

Her answering smile is bitter as she brings up her fingers to tuck back stringy strands of hair behind her ear. She seems to look up at him pointedly as she does this, her eyes harsh and challenging as he catches sight of a strangely bare ear.

“I’m not the best person to ask. Because I’ll say yes…yes, it’s always going to hurt. But people find ways to cope and move forward. You especially…”

He gives a warbling chuckle, something entirely disbelieving. His hands hover awkwardly over her shoulders, and the bloom of embarrassment colors both their cheeks as an awkward silence threads through them.

She coughs delicately, rolling her shoulders a bit and stepping away a little bit more.

“Sorry for barging in.” She comments as she bends down to pick up her battered umbrella. She’s wrapping herself tightly together now, her tendrils no longer reaching out.

The rain still pounds heavily against his living room window, beyond the heavy claret colored curtains.

Despite his earlier wishes, he wants her to stay. But her eyes betray her nervousness, and while his Lady has always been brave, something in her is too fragile in this moment.

Still, he offers.

“You can…you can stay if you want. Just until the rain lets up.” He ventures hopefully.

(And she’ll what to say No…in fact the word is battering against her lips, fluttering little wings in fear, but she swallows it down with the acrid taste of victory.)

Her smile is tentative, her fear blooming curling black in the pit of her stomach and she only has enough to courage to nod her head.

His answer is to shine like sunbeams again, and his laughter is melancholy and joyous all at once.

She doesn’t begrudge him the tears that finally spill over his pale cheeks as he does so.

* * *

  
They have a roundabout conversation, sitting stiffly on his plush blue couch.

She’s postured primly, looking very much like a cat again while she holds her steaming mug of chamomile in between her slim hands.

Her face is relaxed into one of patient bewilderment, as if she can’t quite grapple with the idea that she is here.

He’s surprised he can gather that much with her sunglasses still clinging to half her small face.

They make the tiniest of small talk, with long gaps in conversation that don’t quite breach the topsoil of there hearts’ gardens.

But he does manage to find out what she does for a living.

“I’m a tattoo artist.” She answers matter-of-factly, and she giggles a bit when she sees his astonishment at getting a straight answer.

He nods approvingly, green eyes cutting like glass through the steam.

“So we’re both artists.”

“I guess so. Are you still also an escape artist?”

He hums thoughtfully, and tilts his head in quiet contemplation before answering.

“Not as much as before…I’m not Chat Noir anymore.” He winces as that realization tugs at the raw edges of the hole in his chest. “And I’m never going to be again.”

Zinnia Girl, as he still knows her by because they have an unspoken agreement regarding her privacy, merely shakes her head.

“You’re still you. He’ll always be a part of you. Everything that was tied to him will always be a part of you. You’re a hero, Adrien.” She says with the utmost confidence, and for once the flush of her cheeks isn’t from the cold or irritation.

As far as he can tell, anyway.

Incredulity colors his tone when he asks-

“Where you a Chat Noir fan?”

And he can’t quite tell if she’s joking or not when she gives him the broadest smile. It unfurls across her face slowly until she looks like a cat who’s caught the canary.

“The biggest.”

The rain devolves into a drizzle, and she leaves without revealing much more.

And the holes in his heart are still gaping and flooded with tears, but there’s a plot of his garden that’s bursting with clusters of yellow dandelions.

Perhaps there’s more to having wishes granted than chasing stars…perhaps it’s better just to patiently wait them out.

* * *

 

  
_Years later, the Ladybug and the Black Cat met in a dying garden._

_But they passed each other by without realizing._

_The Cat couldn’t recognize his Lady beyond all the inky black of her painted shell._

_The Lady couldn’t recognize her handsome cat beyond the dull green eyes and the bloodied fur._

_But the garden gate was locked by a mischievous little bee, and so they wandered round and round, searching for someone they could feel, but couldn’t see._

* * *

 

She expects the morning to be dreary, but there’s a certain expectation that twines over her lingering dreams like overgrown vines.

She’s going to see him again. She knows it deep in her marrow, the realization digs roots deep into her and it’s taken a night and a day to accept it all.

He’s in her life again, Chloe knows who she used to be, Tikki is gone and so is Plagg…for reasons that don’t at all stack up to logical reasons.

But the universe has always had its own set of rules, and she’s written down her observations on her skin to cope.

She’s settled her emotions, letting a melancholy acceptance pick it’s own little plot of land on her already full heart.

And there’s that flowering rosy bloom as well, swaying cheerfully on a still green stem. It’s so familiar and unwelcome. It doesn’t have thorns, but it’s something she’s refusing to indulge.

It’s a plant that takes too much blood, sweat and tears to keep healthy.

She keeps her eyes shut tight against the silvery light that sieves through the gray clouds. She rolls over onto her stomach, muffling her curses into the pillow over and over again.

She wants to go back to sleep, but there’s an insistent tap, tap, tap that refuses to let her drift off back into hazy dreams.

For once, it’s not the torrid sounds of lovers or the clumsily played piano that wakes her fully.

She thrashes past her entanglement of blankets to stare balefully in the direction where the tapping is coming from.

It’s on her once empty night stand and it takes her a while to register the large silver ring resting there…

And a tiny, irritated little black cat that sits next to it, impatiently tapping at the pale wood to get her attention.

“Oh good. Finally, you woke up! I’m hungry. Do you have any cheese by chance?” He remarks a bit dully, green eyes blinking large and petulant.

And there isn’t much she can do about the scream that tears from her throat other than hide it in her pillow.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Retrouvailles: The joy of reuniting with someone after a long separation.
> 
> Incidentally, also a popular marriage counseling program.


End file.
